Connected vehicles

One of the benefits of driving a "connected" car is the ability to receive warnings of hazardous weather on the road ahead. Toyota is now looking at improving the accuracy of such warnings, by monitoring what vehicles' windshield wipers are up to.

Toyota has announced that its Toyota and Lexus-branded vehicles will include vehicle to infrastructure technologies by 2021. The tech will be available in the US that year, and the company hopes to push communications standards for both vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V).

During the proceedings of a Connected Motorcycle Consortium conference in Munich, BMW introduced a R1200RS ConnectedRide. The prototype demonstrates the kind of inter-vehicle technology that is developed for the integration of two-wheelers in future connected transport systems.

As cars become more connected, a range of clever apps to interact with them has popped up. BMW offers up a clever personal assistant, and Volvo ​will let you lock your car using an Apple Watch. Now, Volkswagen will let you keep track of all servicing using the My Volkswagen app.

Rand McNally's tablet-based OverDryve system adds voice-controlled navigation, connectivity, a dash cam and more to any dashboard.​

Between testing autonomous driving tech and unveiling a new line of electrified vehicles, Hyundai appears to be very much focused on the future. It has now announced what it calls a roadmap for connected car development, which involves R&D to change the way drivers interact with vehicles.

The US Department of Transportation has released its report to the United States Congress assessing the status of dedicated short-range communications for connected vehicle technologies. The findings are that they are ready for deployment.